Reading from Dear Judas and Other Poems, 1929, Horace Liverwright, NY, page 127
Jeffers’ overarching theme is essentially Lovecraftian—that Man is puny indeed next to the greater and longer-lived things of the cosmos. However, while often related in bleak verse, his universe is not at all ugly and horrid, but monstrously beautiful.
As a contemporary of Howard and Lovecraft, I often wonder if they knew of him. They were certainly affected by the strong negative energy of modernity in their own manner.
Evening Ebb is a rather direct poem of 13 lines, beginning with:
“The ocean has not been so quiet for a long while; five night-herons
Fly shorelong voiceless in the hush of air
Over the calm of an ebb that almost mirrors their wings.”
Much of Jeffers’ poetry begins inspired by visions of nature, and, like Evening Ebb, closes with an opening of the mind informed by nature.
He: Gilgamesh: Into the Face of Time
